The present disclosure relates to image forming systems including image forming apparatuses, servers, and terminal devices, all of which perform data communication with each other via networks, and to image forming apparatus controlling methods. The present disclosure particularly relates to a technique for switching an image forming apparatus from a power saving state to a driving state.
In the image forming systems, there are known techniques in which printing requests of images are transmitted from terminal devices to image forming apparatuses via networks and the images are formed on recording sheets by the image forming apparatuses. When power saving states are set in the image forming apparatuses, switching from the power saving states to driving states is performed in response to the reception of the printing requests, and image formations are started after temperatures of fixing devices rise to fixing temperatures. Therefore, waiting times occur between the receptions of the printing requests and the starting of image formations.
In view of the foregoing, there are known systems in which history of print jobs are saved and dates and times of the use of printing terminals are predicted based on the history of the print jobs: in this systems, the printing terminals are switched from the power saving states to the driving states on the predicted use dates and times, to thereby start printing.